Aerogel will take its next ride into space on Stardust, launching this weekend. With aerogel, scientists hope to capture dust samples from comet Wild and return them to Earth. However, aerogel has many more applications, from super insulation to computing.

Optical computers will be much faster than today's electronic computers. Scientists at Marshall Space Flight Center are conducting space research to build components needed for the next step: hybrid electro-optic computers.

Spacelab, an integral part of science in space from 1982 through 1998, had some remarkable achievements. Scientists met at the National Academy of Sciences last week to present their - and Spacelab's - accomplishments.

So you're a PhD scientist or a top gun pilot, and you've just been selected to be an astronaut, and now you have to learn to be a generalist to help run experiments on the International Space Station(ISS). So it's back to school for astronaut trainees, too.